It began not with a funeral, but with a Facebook post.
“Mukoma wa Ngugi learns of his father’s death online.” A jarring headline. A private heartbreak turned painfully public.
For most Kenyans and the larger global community familiar with the celebrated author, Prof Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s passing, a literary giant and conscience of a nation, was a moment for solemn reflection.
For his family, it became a flashpoint.
A son left out. A cremation was carried out quietly.
A country torn between celebrating a hero and questioning how he was laid to rest.
But beneath the trending hashtags and op-eds was a far more common story: one of unresolved wounds, unspoken grief, and the chaos that often follows death, because death, as it turns out, does not always bring people together. Sometimes, it pulls them apart.
Mukoma’s words were simple but searing: “Had it not been for one of my brothers reaching out, I would have discovered his passing through social media.”
But if Mukoma was shocked by the death of his father and the seeming isolation by his siblings, another blow followed fast and furious: he learned of his father’s cremation after it had already taken place.
He missed out on saying goodbye to a man who had taught him so much, despite their complicated history.
“I was not told. I was not invited.”
His estrangement from his father, rooted in years of pain, played out on a digital stage. That must have cut through his heart like an ice-cold blade.
Yet, in all this, Mukoma publicly said: “I still love him” – even in death.
Years earlier, Mukoma had accused Ngugi of abusing his mother. The revelation stunned admirers and fractured his relationship with both his father and parts of his family.
“It was like washing the family’s dirty linen in public,” said a close family associate. “They preferred to keep the perfect image intact.”
The fourth-born son of the celebrated author spoke of a deep rift later that separated him from his father for the last four years before his death, and a painful family feud and broken relationship.
He spoke of his relationship with his father as strained, away from the warmth expected between a father and son. He openly and candidly spoke about their final months together, which he said were strained, lacked their usual laughter, and were marked by tension.
Ngugi passed away on Wednesday, May 28, a death communicated by his daughter Wanjiku wa Ngugi, who urged all those who knew him to celebrate his life and works.
The celebrated writer was cremated in the US, in a quiet ceremony between family members alone.
To celebrate his life, his family (without Mukoma) organised different ceremonies in different states, including Nairobi, after the cremation.
Despite the fallout, Mukoma sad he loved and respected Ngugi wa Thiong’o as his father. He hailed the writer for raising him to be a truth-teller.
“All I can say is that I still love him, and despite all that, he is my father; there are no families without contradictions,” he said.
“That sentence lingers,” says Godfrey Mulumba, a psychologist and family therapist. “It reminds us that even fractured love is still love.”
“Beneath family disputes lie raw human longings – for reconciliation, recognition, and peace.”
Ngugi’s death, like his life, forced uncomfortable questions into the open. But this time, they were not about colonialism or language. They were about fathers and sons. About mourning someone who hurt you. About who gets to decide how a story should end.
Other prominent cases
In 1987, the whole country was gripped by the fight between Wambui Otieno and her husband’s Umira Kager clan. S M Otieno, a respected Nairobi lawyer, had lived in the city most of his life and married Wambui, a fiery nationalist, feminist, and freedom fighter. When he died, she wanted to bury him in Nairobi.
But his clan insisted he be buried in Uyoma, his ancestral home, in line with Luo customs.
What followed was a 140-day courtroom drama. Wambui’s fight was not personal. It was symbolic, a woman confronting patriarchy and challenging tradition, refusing silence.
The court ruled in favour of the clan. Wambui lost the legal battle, and her husband’s body was taken from the city to the village. But her defiance echoed far beyond the courtroom.
Wambui’s fight was not just personal. It was symbolic. A woman standing up against patriarchy, against the authority of tradition, against a system that often silenced women.
That case became a turning point in Kenya’s conversation about widowhood, cultural identity, and autonomy in death. It shocked the country’s moral fibre and split public opinion.
Was she selfish? Brave? Right?
To this day, legal scholars, journalists, and families refer to the S M Otieno case when addressing death and the law. The feud did not just break the family. It broke the silence around burial rights, widowhood, and the balancing act between custom and autonomy.
“When someone dies, they leave behind more than property. They leave behind power–over memory, narrative, and legacy,” says Joyce Wamugunda, a family lawyer.
The family of the late Kihika Kimani learned this the hard way. Children from multiple marriages clashed over property.
Behind the suits and affidavits were bruised relationships, children who had grown up in parallel homes, now forced to reckon with each other, with decades of parallel lives suddenly forced into confrontation.
The Mungania Ethangata family of Meru offers a quieter echo. No courts. Just cold silences, redrawn fences, and daughters demanding visibility.
What do all these families have in common? They were not broken by death. They were already fractured. Death just turned on the light.
But not every story ends with lawyers and loss.
In Nyeri, the Mwangi Njoroge family, with over a dozen siblings and a handful of relatives, chose something different. Faced with a property dispute after their mother’s death, they opted for mediation.
The process was messy, with tears, confessions, and even a walkout. But they stayed at the table. And when the dust settled, they held her funeral hand-in-hand.
In Kisumu, a polygamous family was planning a joint memorial. One widow refused to attend.
Their children reminded both women that grief is shared. In the end, the women stood side by side.